Boy George Recalls Princess Diana Calling Him a 'True Survivor'

The 1980s Culture Club singer is telling all in a new memoir, 'Karma My Autobiography'

Royals and pop stars usually mix and mingle – especially at gigs put on for charity.

But when Boy George was invited to an event with Princess Diana in the late 1980s, he found he was not on the meet-and-greet list for the iconic royal.

However, Diana, had other ideas, he writes in his new memoir. She wanted to meet him, and his mom Dinah, whom George had brought along to the event.

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George, 62, had been in the news for his struggles with drug addiction. He writes in Karma, "My reputation was ragged." He wasn’t in the official greeting party, but the host, nightclub owner Peter Stringfellow. said Diana wanted to say hello. But when he went to do so, George was “shooed away” by a palace official, so he went off to the bar instead.

But the princess “broke protocol and approached me,” George writes. She complimented him on his eye-catching outfit — a coat by Judy Blume and hat covered in silver safety pins.

“That must have taken forever,” Diana told him of his spangled outfit. George quipped back, “I didn’t do it myself, love.”

Related: Boy George Doesn't 'Hate' Ex Jon Moss Nearly a Year After Bitter Legal Dispute with Former Bandmate (Exclusive)

He then asked if the princess could meet his mom, and pointed out where Dinah was standing. Diana sent for her. “They spent 10 minutes chatting. She told Mum I was a true survivor.”

For more on Boy George and his memoir, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE on newsstands on Friday.

On another occasion, George met the late Queen Elizabeth’s sister Princess Margaret at the Sony Music Radio Awards, held at the London Hilton. She reportedly said afterwards, “Who’s that Boy George? He looks like an over made-up tart.”

In Karma, George reports that he, “snapped  back in the press.” The quick-witted singer had T-shirts made showing the royal’s face imposed on his body with the words, “I’m not a tart.”

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While he was out having lunch a little later, Margaret’s son, Lord Linley (now Lord Snowdon) asked to have a word. “My mother never called you a tart. She had lots of gay friends and knew exactly who you were,” Linley told the singer.

“It must have been Carol Decker," George responded, of another singer who was popular at the time. "Although I don’t think she wears as much make-up as me.”

At the end of it all, George held no ill-will toward the royal. “I actually loved Princess Margaret," he said. "She was my type of royal — very glamorous, full of it and excited.”

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